One day in the early 1960s, Trudy Hennep, an American Airlines flight attendant born in Dutch Guiana, pulled her car in for service at a Mobil gas station in New York City. Pena, 55, was born in New York, but the family was in South Florida when he was in high school. Therefore, Pena has contributed to all of the success – the four Indy wins, the 11 series titles, plus the sports car racing championships and Daytona wins – since joining the operation in 2002. Pena worked directly on the winning “500” cars of Franchitti (2010, 2012) and Ericsson (2022) while doing the same on the title-winning cars of Dixon (2003, 2018) and Franchitti (2009, 2010, 2011), and he described winning Indy with Ericsson as a shining moment. The other extra-special moment in his career: Franchitti’s Indy win in 2012. “And then, my first year as crew chief at the ‘500’ (in 2022), to win that was a great achievement.”.

Follow MotorMouth on social media:

• 
• 
• 
•